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Hunter Biden is offering to plead guilty, and not enter an Alford plea — which would mean he maintained his innocence but conceded that the prosecution likely has enough evidence for a conviction — in his federal tax evasion case Thursday.
The trial was set to get underway Thursday in Los Angeles federal court.
In a major shakeup before jury selection began, Hunter Biden said he sought an Alford plea, which is treated as a guilty plea, and after pushback from prosecutors, later said he would plead guilty. If accepted, the plea would spare Biden from a public trial.
Hunter Biden was indicted in 2023 on three felony and six misdemeanor counts, with prosecutors alleging he did not pay at least $1.4 million in federal taxes for four years — a period when Hunter has said he struggled with drug addiction.
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The trial would be the US President Joe Biden’s son’s second this year, but unlike his first, this time the political repercussions may be less potentially damaging for Democrats as then, as Joe Biden has since dropped out of the presidential race.
Prosecutors planned to highlight episodes that are “painful and embarrassing for the Biden family,” Politico wrote, and would seek to portray Hunter Biden as an entitled businessman who spent lavishly to pursue a playboy lifestyle, according to the indictment. Prosecutors also alleged that he filed fraudulent tax returns and falsely marked personal transactions as business expenses.
Prosecutors also recently announced in a court filing they have evidence that Hunter Biden allegedly agreed to lobby the US government on behalf of a Romanian oligarch.
U.S. District Judge Mark Scarsi has already issued a series of pretrial rulings that make the president’s son’s defense harder: In particular, he blocked the defense from telling the jury that, after Hunter Biden got sober, he paid the taxes he owed.
Hunter Biden faces up to 17 years in prison in setnencing.
Evidence of Hunter Biden’s drug addiction was also the focus of a separate federal firearms case in Delaware earlier this year. Jurors eventually convicted him of lying that he was not a drug addict when purchasing a gun. He is expected to be sentenced in November.